State of the Alex 2026

Fourteen months ago I was laying in a hospital bed waking up from anesthesia after having just undergone bariatric surgery. I was lost, in terrible pain, only semi-conscious and hearing myself beg for help. I weighed 400lbs. Today I jumped out of bed at 6am and raced downstairs to continue working with my creative partners on things I’d just finished dreaming about. But first, I stepped on the scale. It read 189.

Thanks for coming to this year’s State of the Alex, a series I started because I thought it would be funny to lean into some narcissistic tendencies. People SURELY want to hear what I, the epitome of “just a guy,” have been up to. Lately, though, it feels like I’m coming to grips with the concept that people might actually care about me, and the things I’m up to might actually be interesting. I credit this change in mentality first to the hundred-something hours of time I’ve invested in therapy sessions over the past 14 months, and second to the power of body image issues. I am a lot kinder to myself than I used to be. The self-hatred is at a local minimum and I smile when I see myself in the mirror. My body reflects back to me and I recognize the person I am, standing there for just a fractional moment before rushing to get back to work on the thing I’m truly passionate about: creating board games.

My second major board game, Notebook Nations, releases today. I wrote about it all the way back in April 2024 here on DFO and again that May.

It took two long years but the day is finally here where people can buy the thing I’ve been pouring my heart into this whole time. It’s not just my heart, either. My game design partner Nic, my illustrator Seb, and our layout designer Teo have also invested an incredible amount of time, creative energy, and love into the little world that comes in that box. Of course, it’s not the only thing that’s been going on. Far from it!

I wrote twice previously about bariatric surgery on DFO – once in May 2024, once in May 2025, and I just missed the cutoff to write about it in May 2026 so we’ll have to settle for June. I’ve lost 250lbs from my peak weight and 171lbs in the last 14 months. That amount of weight loss is the goal for 24 months post-surgery, but my bloodwork and muscle mass look better than most people do at 24 months so I’ve been cleared to stop losing. I’m 6’1″ (only 6′ even at time of surgery meaning all that weight loss decompressed me by a full inch) so at 189lbs I’m pretty long and stringy. I’ve been told that 175 is a reasonable healthy weight for me if I’m not seeking to strength train which I think is pretty wild. My grandfather was only 190lbs at 6’8″ though, so I come by it naturally. And I don’t mind being so long and thin! It’s fun to try on clothes now, and I even have a good excuse to buy them since my wardrobe is full of the circus tents I used to wear.

Unfortunately for me, the situation in my spine involving my degenerative disc disorder has, well, degenerated further. I now have so little disc material separating my L5 from my S1 that they’re soon going to naturally fuse together due to constant contact. This will save me some money on a spinal fusion surgery, but it’s likely to hurt a lot more while it’s happening. Simultaneously, the scar tissue from the disc eruption that’s formed around my sciatic nerve has so completely surrounded the nerve that I constantly feel like an anaconda has wrapped around my right leg and is trying to squeeze it to death. My surgeon says that’s essentially what’s happening, just at the base of the nerve and with a much smaller anaconda made out of scar tissue. I’m taking some meds to control it and I also receive weekly calf stabbings to help the muscle release tension (dry needling, not acupuncture). It’s not great! But a couple weeks ago, I participated in a trial for a spinal cord stimulator that can prevent the pain signals from the sciatic nerve from reaching my brain. It didn’t treat the cause of the pain, but it definitely helped majorly reduce my symptoms. The odd part is that there’s a tradeoff – the spinal stimulator replaces the pain with the feeling that my legs are asleep. A painless but constant minor tingling from my hip to my toes on both legs, including the right one that has no issues. I genuinely felt at the end of the trial that this tradeoff was worth it, so I put myself on the list to receive the surgery. If my insurance approves, which they likely will since they greenlit the trial, I’ll get a device implanted in my back and be controlling my pain levels with an external TV remote, which fulfills my lifelong dream of becoming a cyborg.

Returning to board game news, my little company is not so little anymore. We’ve grown to a team of 7. If you add the publisher and sales team, we’re stretched across 8 time zones. This makes my life seriously challenging since I’m still working a day job. Thankfully we’re doing well enough to afford me an assistant who is keeping things afloat. We’re a long way off from allowing me to quit my day job, but for the first time I can see the pieces I need to put into place in order to accomplish that by the end of the decade. I’m living in good times right now, even if they are tough times.

Next steps for me include but are not limited to: publish another 5 games in the next 8 months (scheduled), complete the three contracts that are keeping us afloat, earn more contracts before those ones end and we die in a fiery explosion, self-publish a game, continue designing new games, keep networking, and don’t die. I think. I think. I think I can!

___

Thank you all for being here, from the bottom of my heart. Although I rarely post, I think about DFO often and look forward to the times when I have a window to write something to post. If I had my choice I’d be writing every day and never do anything worth writing about. Instead, I find myself on the other side of the line where I have tons to write about and no time to do it.